Talk:Penpal/@comment-4983187-20140722144225
Hey guys, in case anyone is confused or simply thinks tl;dr, I deciphered the chronology the best I could. It's still a bit of a read, but way more condensed in case anyone is frustrated by the story. Boxes – Age 5, Pre-K The story starts during the summer before Dathan’s Kindergarten year. Dathan learned to climb trees that summer and got very good at it, until a nasty fall from a branch broke his arm in two places. To cheer him up, Dathan’s mom bought a cat, which Dathan named “Boxes”. Originally a stray, Boxes tended to get outside a lot without supervision. Dathan and his mom would bring Boxes back in and would give him tuna fish to eat. Eventually, Boxes learned to associate the sound of a can opener with tuna fish, and would come running whenever he heard the can opener being used. Friends – Age 5, Kindergarten Dathan recalls making friends with Josh and how they were inseparable when they were young. He fingers the Boxes incident as the point where their friendship went south and they gradually grew apart. Afterwards, Josh seemed less enthusiastic about hanging out and being friends in general. Maps – Age 5 Dathan explains how in his neighborhood, the oldest houses were built around a lake and also introduces a nice old widow named Mrs. Maggie who lived in one of the lake homes. Mrs. Maggie had Alzheimer’s and would often confuse Dathan and Josh with her own sons, Chris and John, who apparently never visited. Meanwhile, Dathan and Josh decide to map out their neighborhood. However, due to difficulties getting drawings to scale and the woods getting too thick, they abandon the venture for a while. Balloons – Age 5 Dathan’s class did a “Balloon Project” meant to educate young kids about their surrounding city from the safety of the classroom. The project has each kid send a friendly introductory letter (accompanied with a photo of the child and a dollar “For Stamps”), tied to a balloon, into the city. Hopefully, a person would find the letter and reply with photos showing the child interesting parts of the city. Dathan’s letter gets intercepted by a psychotic stalker who we’ll call “Penpal”. Penpal “falls in love” with Dathan’s photo and decides that he must have Dathan. Camera in hand, Penpal starts stalking Dathan, sneaking blurry, indecipherable photos which he then mails the narrator in unmarked envelopes. Throughout the rest of the year, Dathan receives over fifty Polaroids, most of which he doesn’t even look at. He keeps all these photos in his Junk Box and thinks nothing more about it. That summer, Dathan and his friend Josh acquire a snow cone machine and make a small fortune selling snow cones on the street. Five weeks in, they’re splitting their profits when Dathan notices that his “For Stamps” dollar he mailed in the Balloon Project had come back to him (it’s possible that Penpal was among those in line for snow cones). The boys have a “dirt war” outside while Penpal spies on them, snapping pictures of the two (Josh dismisses these as “robot sounds”). The dollar rekindles Dathan’s curiosity about the Polaroids. He goes back to look at them, but realizes that he is in every single photo. He shows his mother the Polaroids, and she gets frightened and calls the police and makes plans for them to move to a different neighborhood, because the envelopes were not postmarked, which implies that Penpal knows where they live. Maps – Age 6, 1st Grade Having rekindled their interest in the maps after Dathan’s mom took away the boys’ snow cone machine and placed restrictions on their outdoor play time to protect them against Penpal, the boys build a raft to sail into the previously impassable forest. Defying Dathan’s mom once again, the two sneak out at night. They change into swimsuits and leave their shirts and shorts on the lake bank. Then they board the raft into the heavily-wooded area, where Penpal stalks them, even saying “Hello” to them at one point. Frightened, the boys flee with Penpal hot on their heels. The raft comes apart in the water. The map floats away. When they get back to shore, Dathan realizes his shirt is missing (Penpal stole it). Dathan stays behind to look for the lost items as Josh runs back to Dathan’s house. Dathan remembers being surprised by Mrs. Maggie (who calls him Chris). He jokingly asked her for a snack and she replied “Maybe another time”. Dathan thought something was off because usually it’s Mrs. Maggie who offers him snacks. When he returns home, the boys change out of their wet clothes. Dathan remembers the lighter still in the pocket of his shorts. He doesn’t find the lighter, but instead he finds a folded-up piece of paper from Penpal with “15” or “16” written in one corner and a crude picture of two faceless stick figures – one big and one small – holding hands. Dathan’s initials are scrawled next to the smaller stick figure. A few weeks later, Mrs. Maggie died and Dathan recalls seeing orange-suited HazMat teams taking full garbage bags out of her house. He remembers that Mrs. Maggie, in her delirium, said that Tom had come home. Only now does he realize that Penpal, presumably angry at Mrs. Maggie for inadvertently stepping in and saving the day, brutally murdered the woman. Footsteps – Age 6 Soon, Penpal makes his home in the crawlspace under Dathan’s house. The “imaginary” footsteps Dathan recalls hearing at night were actually Penpal prowling around beneath him. Dathan’s narration implies that Penpal actually broke into the house on several occasions when Dathan and his mom were sleeping, and moved Dathan from the top bunk to the bottom bunk. On the particular night featured in this chapter, Penpal kidnaps Dathan and takes him out into the woods at night, where he sets Dathan down in a thornbed (ostensibly to “protect” him – or to cage him in) and sets up a deflated kiddie pool either as an altar to worship him (plausible, as Penpal is an obssessive psycho stalker enamored with Dathan), or as a toy for Dathan to play with (which would imply Penpal would like to keep Dathan forever). However, Penpal most likely fled the scene when Dathan woke up. Dathan backtracks his way home, where his mom tells him he left a shoddily-written running-away note on the bed. Reading it, Dathan confirms he did not write this letter, indicating that Penpal forged the note to throw off Dathan’s mom. Boxes – Age 6 On the day of the move, Boxes escapes the house and goes under the crawl space as Dathan and his mom are packing. Dathan’s mom goes under the crawl space and comes back out with Boxes, but she looks very unnerved. Dathan doesn’t know why. What’s more, Dathan initially doesn’t know why they are leaving way earlier than his mom said. Later, he realizes that his mom did this to throw off Penpal, who may have been listening in on their conversations. They leave to a new neighborhood, leaving behind a lot of old clothes packed in boxes. Though he now goes to a different school, Dathan stays friends with Josh, and through arrangements made by their parents they are still able to meet for play dates, sleepovers, and holidays, sometimes every weekend. Their parents even bought them walkie-talkies, so they could communicate with each other. Thanks to their parents, Dathan says, he and Josh managed to stay friends for many years. Boxes – Age 10 One Saturday night, when Dathan is over at Josh’s for a sleepover, Dathan’s mom calls and says that Boxes is missing. Thinking that Boxes might be at Dathan’s old house, the duo go to investigate. Bringing walkie-talkies and flashlights, they cut through the woods where Penpal dropped Dathan off in “Footsteps”, and arrive at Dathan’s old house. Dathan notices that his mother had lied about “new owners” and that the house was in fact abandoned. Dathan goes to check under the crawl space and Josh checks inside the house. Under the house, Dathan finds blankets and cat food (albeit a different kind his mom used to buy for Boxes), and believes that his mom put the blankets and food there for Boxes. However, he is horrified to discover a pile of rotting animal corpses in the corner. Things get even creepier when Josh radios in, telling about how all of Dathan’s clothes had been removed from their boxes and hung up, how Dathan’s Polaroids were plastered all over the wall of his old room, and how he glimpsed a man (Penpal) hauling a moving bag through the abandoned house. Frightened, the two flee the scene, but not before Penpal takes Josh’s picture. As the boys leap over a fence with Penpal chasing them, Josh drops his walkie talkie, which Penpal obtains. The next day, Dathan tells his mom what happened, and his mom freaks out, explaining that she never put out the blankets and cat food for Boxes. Dathan now understands why his mom was so unnerved the last time she emerged from under the crawl space with Boxes – she knew that Penpal was living under them and that they needed to get out as soon as they could. Dathan hears Boxes’ meows coming from under a shirt. He lifts the shirt, only to find his walkie talkie lying there, which suggests that Penpal probably killed Boxes for food and is broadcasting the murder process through Josh’s walkie talkie. Dathan doesn’t hear anything from Penpal for almost two years. Friends – Age 12 Dathan is celebrating his 12th birthday, and he invites all his friends to his party, including Josh, who he hasn’t seen for a long time. Dathan notices that Josh is exhausted and barely answering his questions. At the party, he receives a shabby card from Penpal that reads “I love you”. Dathan’s mother, being thoughtful, presents him with a new pair of walkie talkies, but Dathan notices Josh has turned a sickly shade of white. Josh tells Dathan that he called his father to pick him up from the party. Before Josh leaves, he mentions that he may have been sleepwalking. This is the last time Dathan hears from Josh. A few months later, Josh goes missing. Screens – Age 15 Since he was in 1st grade, Dathan has had a crush on Josh’s sister, Veronica, who is three years older than him. An unexpected reunion with Veronica at a movie theater reminds Dathan of how much he misses Josh. He calls Josh’s old number, but the number has changed. Dathan decides to take Veronica to see Day of the Dead, but his mom forbids it when she realizes who Dathan wants to take. Dathan then asks if he could go to his friend Chris’ house and his mom relents. From there, Dathan walks half a mile to the movie theater. On the way, a car with a broken back window stops behind, then passes him. Because of its bright headlights, Dathan cannot see the driver and assumes that it is a prank. He meets Veronica and they see the movie together. Afterwards, they exchange phone numbers, Dathan goes off on his own to urinate behind the movie theater when he hears Penpal hit Veronica with his car – the car with the broken back window. An injured Veronica tells Dathan that Penpal took her picture. Later, Dathan visits Veronica several times in the hospital. On his last visit, Veronica informs Dathan that Josh had run away when he was thirteen, and that there was a poorly-written note on his pillow. Dathan realizes that Penpal has successfully kidnapped Josh as he tried to do to Dathan in “Foosteps”. This also suggests that Josh’s “sleepwalking” in “Friends” results from several occasions Penpal unsuccessfully carried Josh a certain distance (as he did with Dathan) when the latter was sleeping and fled when Josh woke up. After this, Dathan receives a text from her phone asking that he not visit anymore, because she doesn’t want him to see her like this. A week afterwards, Dathan gets a text from Veronica saying “I love you.” Dathan is overjoyed and they make plans to meet for another movie, though Veronica’s replies seem shifty. On the night of the date, he goes to the movie and waits for her but she doesn’t show. He remembers asking a man (heavily implied to be Penpal) if a seat was taken. The man does not reply and Dathan remembers that he had trouble breathing. Dathan texts Veronica the next day and she replies with “See you again, soon.” Dathan’s mom informs him that Veronica died in the hospital after Dathan’s last visit to her. The weirdest part is her phone, which Dathan remembers putting in Veronica’s purse, was never found at the crime scene, and that Veronica’s parents, when calling the phone company to deactivate her number, found that her phone had been charged hundreds of dollars for sending photos to Dathan’s phone, which Dathan never received because his phone doesn’t receive pictures. Dathan puts the pieces together and deduces that Penpal killed Veronica and stole her phone, impersonating her via text to lure Dathan out where Penpal could be with him. Dathan remarks that he tried not to think about the pictures, but couldn’t help wondering if he were in any of them. Friends – Age 15 From increasingly strained conversations with his mother, Dathan learns how everything played out. After the loss of her second child, Josh’s mom grew unstable. Josh’s dad, in order to stay close to home, took up construction work, which included leveling earth in Dathan’s old neighborhood. Dathan’s mom recalled how Josh’s dad accidentally exhumed his own son’s corpse. Lying on top of Josh is the body of Penpal, who, surprisingly, does not look like a depraved psycho at all (save the massive wound in his neck), but a large, normal-looking man, who died with a loving smile on his face. Also at the scene was a bottle of ether, which explains Josh’s sleepwalking. Josh’s brown hair (as mentioned in this chapter) was dyed blonde like Dathan’s, and he was clothed in clothes several sizes too small (probably taken from the clothes Dathan left behind). As Dathan’s mother describes, there was a photo of Dathan pinned to Josh’s shirt. They found the unfinished map from “Maps” in Josh’s pocket, which Dathan speculates was an intended birthday present. Josh’s father mentions how about a month before, Penpal had approached him, offering $100 to fill up some holes kids dug on his property. Based on a mix of facts from the story and inference, tt probably turned out like this: -After Dathan moved away, Penpal decided that Josh was a suitable replacement for Dathan. After all, Dathan did mention that he and Josh, at times, were extremely hard to tell apart. Plus, Josh lived closer to Penpal than Dathan did. -As he did with Dathan, Penpal kidnapped him, forging a running-away note for his parents to find. -Penpal held Josh captive for two years -Penpal drugged Josh with ether, then brought him back to Dathan’s old house, dyed his hair, and dressed him up in Dathan’s old clothes that Dathan had left behind when he moved. -Penpal wanted to have “Dathan” for eternity, so he planned his own death and paid Josh’s father to bury them together, lying about “filling up some holes”. -Penpal took Josh down into one of the holes he had dug and lay with him until Josh woke up, assuming that he wanted to die with Josh. When Josh woke up, he bit Penpal’s neck, causing Penpal to bleed out and die. However, Josh suffocated because he couldn’t get Penpal off him. -Josh’s father filled up the holes without encountering his son. The story ends with Dathan thinking about his mother, Veronica, and Josh. Dathan eulogizes Josh, declaring that “We were friends.” Hope I helped. I'm sure I may have screwed up some facts, but it's basically there.